My new name

1955. And so, the European Vera Schapiro, daughter, becomes the American Vera Shapiro, sister, who becomes Vera Torkanowsky, wife, who is now Vera Klement, individual. When I come out again on Fifth Avenue, I open my compact to check my new appearance. I lift up the flat round pad, somewhat grungy around the edges, and run it across my face and over my lips to give them a matte base over which to re-draw their fullness with the latest color in lipstick—a red so dark as to barely hold on to its redness. Then to reify my independent new personhood and my new name I walk to a jewelry shop on Fifty-Seventh Street and let them pierce my ears in a kind of primal ritual. Vera Klement